Samuel's Blog

Google Street View snaps Canberra

August 5th, 2008 at 04:35pm

As you would probably be aware by now, Google Street View was launched in Australia this morning, with pictures of many places across the nation now available as part of Google Maps.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, basically Google sent cars with cameras mounted on them around a large number of streets and how now made the pictures available in conjunction with their place on the map. It’s an interesting concept and good for a quick bit of research if you ever need to work out exactly what a place looks like before you get there…or maybe want to know what some of the nearby landmarks are.

I had a little play with it this morning and noticed, amongst other things:

• That my old car appears both at home and at my former workplace.

A friend’s car does not appear at their house, but might be visible at my old workplace (to get close enough to see it clearly, I have to move to a point where Google have switched to weekend footage of an empty carpark…probably due to privacy concerns).

• There was a time when petrol was only $1.28.9 per litre.
  
• Google drove through the “buses only” zone of the Civic bus interchange illegally
  
  and were quite happy to show some people in relative clarity
  
  but decided to blur out others.
  
• Buildings which no longer exist (and that I forgot to photograph before they were destroyed) are saved temporarily for posterity
  
  and buildings which could only have been designed by somebody who likes monstrosities unfortunately still exist in Google’s world.
  
• I suppose the thing which Google must be very happy about though, is that this country is not one of the odd countries where taking pictures like this
  
  can get you in a whole lot of trouble.

I did briefly consider the possibility that Google’s project may nullify my plan for a photographic series after I finish the “Canberra’s Dams” series, where I was going to pick a random street in Canberra each week and take photos of it…but then I noticed that Google’s photos don’t come with a date attached, whereas mine would. Mine would also last longer than “until we decide to drive around again”, which means mine would have some lasting historical value. I think I’ll go ahead with my series anyway.

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Canberra Stories,General News,IT News

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